Last season Mason averaged 5.5 points and shot 38 percent from 3-point range, second on the Wizards behind swingman Cartier Martin. Most of all, the eight-year veteran provided guidance to a youthful roster, leadership in a locker room that needed more than anyone man could offer and a postgame talker the media could rely on for rationale thought.

Though there was some clamor about keeping the D.C. area native around on what remains an extremely green backcourt - the Wizards projected top five guards have a combined eight years of NBA experience - the odds of a Mason return decreased with each subsequent transaction.